America is a Pastoralpunk Dystopia
@pastoralpunk
Let's be honest here, I mostly post about trains. Well, cities too. I currently work in the Japanese education sector but I'd rather work with trains. I'm a proud Philly expat so expect to see lots of stuff about PA and Pennsylvania too.
These are all real! They were taken at the Kansai International Airport near Osaka, Japan A few more photos of the Nankai Line train
This is very very similar to the wayfinding standard currently being implemented by the Osaka Metro, which I thought was excellent
An interesting Japanese-French mashup dish, vegetables seared and then marinated in a sweet-and-sour marinade flavored with an apple gastrique #foodsky
A simple farmer's omelet I made for brunch the other day 😋
This is my home station, built in the 1970s. The platform is ~4 m wide, I'd guess? Platform screen doors have been installed on both sides of the island. IME a pretty typical layout for Tokyo subway stations
Hanshin Kobe Sannomiya is next to visit. It's a stately underground station with an airiness to it. Trains to Nara terminate in the pocket track, while trains to other parts of Kobe and eventually Himeji continue through the station
The Hanshin terminal! It's currently got four tracks. It used to have five, but the fifth track has been removed to provide new circulation space. It's an incredibly busy terminal, with trains departing mainly to Nishinomiya, Kobe, and Himeji via another railway, San'yo
The fact that the Uehommachi area gets relatively little footfall compared to Namba, Umeda, and Tennoji is a big reason why Kintetsu closes its store at 6:30 (!!) in the evening
Uehommachi is Kintetsu's other major Osaka terminal. It's weirdly sited, too far east of Namba to get Namba energy and too far north of Tennoji to get Tennoji energy. It has transfer point vibes, with lots of passengers transferring from the thru line to Namba to terminating trains here
Two more ridiculously awesome Midosuji Line stations, Tennoji and Shinsaibashi
Tennoji is JR's second largest and second most important Osaka terminal. Unlike Osaka Station, it is primarily a stub-end terminal station with some through running. The Hanwa and Yamatoji lines converge here, and the Mio department store bustles with activity
Abenobashi is one of Kintetsu's two major Osaka terminals. I've never actually used it, since I've never traveled from the city to the southeast, but on top of it is also Osaka's tallest building and an absolutely ginormous Kintetsu department store. So, you know, typical Osaka
It is very hard for me to express just how fucking BIG Kyoto station is--it's the biggest station by volume in Kansai by a goodly margin, mostly driven by this absolutely monstrous atrium. It is a *huge* facility
JR Namba, the smallest and quietest of JR's three Osaka termini, and one on track to not be a terminus anymore, when the Naniwasuji Line opens in the early 2030s
Here in Umeda there are three massive department stores arrayed around a single intersection, and each is attached to its own train terminal too. Shinjuku comes closest to this atmosphere in Tokyo, with the Keio and Odakyu department stores on top of their train terminals and Takashimaya next to JR
There is also a scale model of Osaka Station in one of the complex's newest additions
Osaka Station is the busiest station in Kansai, which makes it the busiest station in the world not in Tokyo! It is also one of the world's most spectacular and best-organized train stations, with multiple accesses not just to the street level but also to a large mezzanine linked to adjoining bldgs
The Midosuji Line is the second oldest subway line in Japan--only the Ginza Line is older--but possesses some of the most spectacular subway stations in Japan. This is Yotsubashi, the interchange with the private railroad operator Keihan
On the outside the Nankai Namba terminal rivals and perhaps even surpasses Tokyo and Ueno stations as having the best architecture of any Japanese train station. Inside, however, a large department store occupies the headhouse, leaving a relatively lackluster station shed
I rode a train today But not just any train I rode Nankai's raygun gothic-esque Rapit β, yes that's its name, from KIX to Namba!
I might have found the most adorable sentence on Wikipedia
Yesterday I made some cola glazed chicken and cole slaw
There is one more chapter in this tale: JR is actually building a new connection between the Tohoku and Yamagata shinkansens that will relieve this overburdened interlocking Based on the satellite view, construction is already quite advanced!
A key part of this project is to get rid of these grade crossings, which are major bottlenecks for every mode of transport involved, either due to the extremely tight curves on Keikyu or because the crossing gates are constantly down for cyclists, pedestrians, buses, and cars
I took a few photos of one of the more impressive work sites around Tokyo, which is the Keikyu grade separation and curvature easing south of Shinagawa station